


So Here's a Hand My Trusted Friend

by hyacinth_sky747



Series: What to Do [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-06 23:44:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyacinth_sky747/pseuds/hyacinth_sky747
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A What to do When Your Flatmate is Homicidal New Year's Diversion</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Here's a Hand My Trusted Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Including an angry sheep, snow angels, undergarments, winter, and a secret pocket of summer.

~December the Thirty-First

I pick up my laptop once again to write during this most festive of seasons. The days are short and cold around our little cottage and more than a little hectic these days. I find myself thinking fondly of the old days in Baker Street when all our dear ones would gather in our cozy rooms. And then they would leave. They would come for like an hour or three and then they would go away. 

Except John. Ever since he let me borrow his phone that first time I never wanted John to go away. 

Unless I was in my Mind Palace. But even then I just want him to go to another room or just be quiet. 

Anyway, this Christmas was an unholy mess. Rub the frost off the window pane, put your nose to the glass and see for yourself. 

December the Twenty-Fourth

“T’was the night before Christmas and all through our home not a creature was stirring except for that gnome.”

“No,” John said. “That’s not how it goes.” 

“Oh for… I’m not pointing at you! I’m pointing at Tim William.”

“No,” John said again. Little does he know that I got him a jumper for Christmas that says _NO!_ on the front so he can save his voice in the future paradise I envision for the new year. 

“It doesn’t go that way even if you’re pointing at Tim,” Joseph said in that smug way he has, reminding me that paradise will not start until Joseph either wanders off into a bog or erases his personality and starts over. 

“Twas the night before Christmas and all through the _house_ ” (I put a scathing amount of emphasis on the word house.)  
John smiled. “There you go.”

“Not a creature was stirring except for that louse. That has wandered out of Joseph’s hair and is making motions like it wants to go for a long walk into the middle of the lake.”

John tutted at me and opened his mouth to say something disagreeable about being nice to everyone but fortunately there was a knock on the door at that moment. I scampered up because John was making motions like he was going to get up and try to hobble to the door of our cottage with his cane like some wizened old man from a fairy tale. 

“Sit down, John.” I had to say this over the roar of two dogs barking and Joseph’s favorite sheep (who was in the living room for God knows what reason) bleating itself into an early grave. Georgie was on the doorstep wearing some sort of sparkling handkerchief instead of a dress in spite of the fact that it was clearly snowing. 

I don’t know where I went wrong with her.

She grabbed my face and gave me about twelve kisses before I had time to think of a diversion. 

“Oh! You’re so nice and warm Uncle Sherlock,” she said before skipping across the room and curling up in John’s lap.

“Uncle John, you’re as handsome as ever,” she said and she tapped his nose with her finger.

“Careful, Georgie. His hip is…” but I didn’t have time to finish because Georgie’s husband, Jamie, banged into the door just as I was closing it. He was carrying Georgie’s coat and two suitcases and a hamper full of presents. 

Jamie is an interesting fellow. His birth was before the advent of recorded time and…wait, no, that’s the only interesting thing about him. 

“Happy Christmas everyone!” he boomed. Jamie booms every word he says. That is not interesting though. That is sad. Is sad the word I’m looking for? Maybe vexing is better.

John was wincing all over his face, what with being sat upon and being boomed at. 

I snapped my fingers at Georgie.

“Down!” I said and pointed to the floor. I heard several small plops from the shadows as various cats and dogs relinquished their forbidden places of rest. 

Georgie got down too but then she went and rolled on the carpet and stuck her legs in the air and panted at me. Of course the tissue she was wearing did not cover her important bits during this endeavor. 

This was nothing I had not seen before as I used to babysit Georgie all the time. I think Lestrade used to give her a laxative before he dropped her off with me because she never failed to have a giant poo on my watch. 

John, however, was leering at her openly. Tim was humming quietly to himself with his eyes closed. Joseph lost his head entirely and threw the contents of his wine glass at her. The handkerchief was not up to the task of sopping up this liquid and would have been rendered transparent if not for some strategically placed sequins. 

“For God’s sake, put some clothes on!” Joseph bellowed. Apparently the sight of his Aunt’s knickers was not putting him in the festive spirit. 

John shook himself out of his daze of lust and remarked that Georgie wouldn’t want her father to see her attired thus. Lestrade has always been the only one who could tame that child. 

So, when he arrived with Molly, Georgie was snuggled into flannel pajamas. (Though she was kneeling at John’s feet and feeding him a biscuit.) Also Tim was drunk, and Joseph’s sheep was angry because it did not want to wear the jumper Joseph had knitted out of its own wool, and Joseph was angry because the sheep was rejecting its present. So I couldn’t really blame Lestrade for asking me if his Christmas present was a bottle of whiskey and if he could just have it now please. 

~*~

The whole of the holiday pretty much went on that way. Tim finally passed out and stayed that way for a good two days. Lestrade got more and more inebriated. Molly and Joseph and I spent the whole of the holiday professing a love of the great freezing outdoors so we could wander off behind some trees and smoke. The sheep got angrier and angrier. We finally saw it wandering down by the lake with its pink hand-knitted jumper standing out brightly against the snow. 

Molly eyed her cigarette suspiciously. 

“Did you tamper with my cigarette or is that a sheep in a pink jumper, Sherlock?”

“No,” Joseph said. “It’s a sheep in a jumper. I suppose it is a bit silly. But yeah, I did tamper with your cigarettes.”

So mostly, Molly, Joseph, and I spent Christmas afternoon stoned out of our minds. 

~*~

Somewhere in there I regaled Molly and Joseph with the story of the first Christmas John and I were a couple. It was during the time that John had first become interested in the wearing of women’s knickers. I got him so many pairs for presents that we had to devote two whole drawers to his collection and I had to throw away the bones of Professor Adams to make room for them. 

John had been particularly taken with a pair of green ones that were basically just a string of satin ribbon that tied over his bum with a bow. It had been snowing very softly that Christmas Eve. We had taken a walk earlier and it was so quiet in the park you could nearly hear the snow fall and settle onto the grass. 

John took my hand in his and I thought he was going to say something sweet and romantic. He does that sometimes. 

“I’m freezing my balls off. Do you want to go home and play with the ribbon knickers? You can unwrap me like I’m a present.” 

I wanted to say something as sweet and romantic but I couldn’t do that very well in those days so I just nodded vigorously like I was an idiot with a neck problem. 

The thing about John is: he has a very rich and naughty imagination. Also he is a bottomless pit of sexual need. I still blush to think of the games he thought up to play with those knickers. 

The next morning I was leaving to solve The Case of the Blue Car (as John named it. Apparently his imagination is only good for depraved things and not titles.) John fished the ribbon knickers off the floor and put them into my hand. 

“Keep them with you. I’m going to sleep and have a shower. Call if you need me.”

So I did and it was like having a dirty, little secret in my pocket, a bit of Christmas cheer if you will, until they fell out at the crime scene. 

I was so intent on studying the body that I didn’t even notice until Lestrade came over and tutted at me.

“Sherlock you’re trampling all over the Christmas decorations,” he said and he picked up John’s knickers. He studied them for a moment rubbed at the mark John had, sort of, you know, made on them, and then hung them on the tree like they were a miniature garland. 

“You’re not supposed to disturb anything,” he lectured. 

And then Anderson wandered in and wanted to know what kind of nut hung knickers on their Christmas tree. 

 

~*~  
Molly laughed ever so long and wanted to know if Lestrade had ever worked out that the knickers were John’s. 

“He’s a fine man, Lestrade,” I said. “He wasn’t at the top of his game that day.” 

She laughed even harder and I was so high I thought Tinker Bells were floating in the bushes. 

“That’s it,” Joseph said. He threw a ball of snow hard at the side of the goat shed. “I’m going to sleep with a man.” And he took off across the field, wading through the snow in the direction of the village. 

Molly and I had to hold each other so we wouldn’t break into tiny pieces with laughing. 

“John can turn any man gay,” Molly said.

“Including himself,” I said and I don’t know why, possibly it was the drugs, but I suddenly missed John so much and I suddenly realized I was outside in my bathrobe. 

I lay back in the snow and made an angel. 

“I keep thinking about Baker Street. You don’t realize how young you were until you’re old.”

Molly lay on her back too and swept her arms back and forth. 

“I still feel like a little girl when I’m alone. Or when I’m with you.”

I turned my head to smile at her but she was looking up, blinking snowflakes from her lashes. 

“John,” I said and then I stopped. It was too much to put into words, even on Christmas.

“He’s having trouble walking,” Molly said. “His head aches. Loud sounds. His old wounds. Swimming to the surface.” 

I sniffled. It was very cold and very still. Molly lay quietly in her angel. 

“We’re old,” I said. 

She rolled her head towards me. “Don’t be maudlin, Sherlock. My grandson is off getting his cherry plucked by some boy in the village. It’s Christmas. We’re stoned. John and Greg are probably off comparing cock sizes and making out. Let’s go join them for heaven’s sake.” 

I let her drag me to my feet. Suddenly very worried and very turned on that we may walk in on John and Lestrade rubbing their cocks together by the fire. 

~*~

So that was Christmas. Tomorrow is the New Year. It is quiet in the cottage tonight, even quieter than that Christmas in Regent’s Park when I could hear the snow falling. 

For Christmas, Tim gave John and I two tickets for him and Joseph to travel to New Zealand for New Year. It was a very thoughtful gift. John has been napping all day and I’ve had the leisure to think and write and finally find that sheep and wrestle it out of its jumper. I can hear John stirring in the bedroom. He will make dinner and have too many whiskeys and want to go to bed before midnight. 

~*~

John shuffled in here in his ancient bathrobe and stood in front of the fire. 

“Happy New Year,” he said. 

I smiled at him and held out my arm so he would come sit on me for a moment. He didn’t though. 

“Do you think Molly will tell Greg about those green ribbon knickers?”

“Georgie’s husband is loud, isn’t he?” I said because I know I’m not supposed to talk about our bedroom activities and I was trying to change the subject. 

“The green ribbon knickers,” John said slowly.

“Joseph got me stoned. He slept with a boy did you know? That gravedigger fellow who…”

I trailed off because John was looking at me in a rather homicidal fashion. My penis got an erection. 

“I liked that Christmas. I miss those guys. Those knickers.”

“Did Lestrade find out?”

I sighed. “Probably. Molly tells him everything.”

I closed my eyes and waited for the lecture. I was to keep private things private. John couldn’t be as depraved as he wanted to be if he was worried about it being on the evening news. Blah, blah, blah.

“Good,” John said. 

I opened my eyes. John was still standing before the fire but gone was the ancient bathrobe. John was standing there, bathed in firelight and around his hips were the green ribbon knickers.

“John? My friends! Where did you…?”

“I stole them back,” John said. There was a light in his eyes that hadn’t been there in awhile. He kicked his cane out of the way and only wobbled a little. “I broke into the crime scene, Sherlock. Without your help. And I took them back. And I promised myself I’d keep it a secret as long as you kept your mouth shut to Lestrade about that particular bedroom adventure.”

I was astounded. John Watson will never cease astounding me. “John! It’s been…it’s been twenty years at least!” 

“Twenty-three. You have been improving, Sherlock.”

I held open my arms to the knickers. “Friend of my youth. Bring them here, John!”

And John sauntered forward with only the slightest totter and I kissed those knickers full and long. 

~*~

And so begins another year. A year of sheep, and bickering with Joseph, and being hugged by Tim when I least expect it, and apparently I will be fantasizing about walking in on John and Lestrade being naked together but still with John loving only me. 

Another year older. 

I suppose I could be worried but John read me a book once. I don’t remember much of what the fellow had to say except this: He said something like, “Within the depths of winter I found within me an invincible summer.” 

Now, I haven’t found anything like that inside myself. I keep my summer in a much better place. I keep it in John. He is a summer that will come to me when I least expect it and most need it. We will always be young. We will always be at 221B Baker Street and falling in love for the first time.

Happy New Year  
xoxoxox


End file.
